London Welsh are in talks to buy the Kassam Stadium so they can move to Oxford permanently.

Following promotion to the Premiership in the summer, the club moved their first-team games to the 12,500-capacity ground while keeping their HQ at Old Deer Park even though the Richmond venue is not up to top-flight standards.

Having attracted crowds of around 5,000 this season, Welsh have opened talks with the stadium owner Firoz Kassam about a permanent move and started a search for investors.

The rugby club groundshare with Oxford United but it is understood the plans do not, at the moment, include the League Two football side.

London Welsh managing director John Taylor told the BBC: “We are exploring the possibility. When we first came here there was a bit of opportunism about it in that we had to find a stadium that satisfied the minimum stadium’s criteria. This is one of them and seemed the best. But since we have arrived we have decided Oxford is the area for us.

“The ground and the demographics of the population make it suitable for us. We have put a lot of work in the local community. We have two community development officers based here now. We are into the schools, we are moving into the clubs and we see this as our long-term home.

“We are certainly exploring the possibility and we are looking for ways we can raise the money so we can do it.

“There are some fairly heavyweight guys in the Welsh community who are exploring it with us at the moment. It would be premature to say any more than that but we are certainly looking into it.”

Things have been moving well on the pitch this season with the club boasting nearly double the points tally of the two more established top-flight sides below them in the table, London Irish and Sale.

With four wins to their name this season, centre Seb Jewell likes to think the players have silenced their critics.

“Some of the newspapers said we wouldn’t get a point all season and I like to think we’ve proved a lot of people wrong,” he said. “That includes me as I probably didn’t expect that we’d have 20 points at this stage.”

Once again, though, the Exiles will be the overwhelming underdogs on Sunday when they play table-topping Harlequins, the first of two encounters between the sides this month.

Having a point to prove may well have been his team-mates’ mantra in 2012 but, with Quins heading to the Kassam Stadium on Sunday, the sentiment is even more prevalent for Jewell. He was an academy player at The Stoop but can remember the moment of being let go after four years at the club.

Jewell, 25, said: “I was brought in by Dean Richards but then Conor O’Shea came in and I wasn’t part of his plans.

“Then I moved to Wasps under Tony Hanks and the same thing happened as a new coach came in. I thought the same thing was going to happen here with Phil Greening and Mike Friday but thankfully it has all worked out. Hindsight’s a great thing and I’m happy with how things have worked out but there’s definitely a point to prove.”